Ph.D. Thesis Now Online

Posted by Hans de Ruiter

For those who are interested or just curious, my Ph.D. thesis is now available online at the University of Toronto. Titled, "3D-tracking of A Priori Unknown Objects in Cluttered Dynamic Environments," this thesis represents my research in computer vision for the last five years. It details an object tracking system that is capable of tracking the 3D pose (position and orientation) of an object without requiring a model of the object to be provided a priori. This allows it to track objects that it has never seen before.

The main target application is to enable robots to see objects in their environment and, therefore, be able to interact with them. Most robotic systems today follow preprogrammed motions, and cannot adapt to changing circumstances (e.g., a part on the production line falls over). Thus, a real-time object tracking system would enable a robotic system to see exactly where an object is, and react accordingly. This could be used in a wide range of places, from industrial settings through to automotive (e.g., track the car in front), and even space (e.g., aid with automated docking).

This research is also one of the reasons for my interest in advanced graphics cards such as the RadeonHD series from AMD. The Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) on these cards is one of the enabling technologies that made my research possible. Without the brute processing power of a GPU, real-time optical-flow based 3D tracking would have been unfeasible.

For more details, read the Ph.D. thesis itself; it is available in PDF form here.